What it does guarantee is that a West Asian team makes it to the final, instead of getting swept away in the quarter-finals. West Asian teams have only won two of the last ten tournaments and after Seoul and Guangzhou made it an all-East Asian final in 2013, the AFC decided they'd had enough.

eujin wrote:What it does guarantee is that a West Asian team makes it to the final, instead of getting swept away in the quarter-finals. West Asian teams have only won two of the last ten tournaments and after Seoul and Guangzhou made it an all-East Asian final in 2013, the AFC decided they'd had enough.

one of those was in jeonju... i'll never forget the day i needed tissues at the stadium...

What worries me, particularly if Qatar retain hosting rights to the 2022 World Cup, is the AFC might then decide to regionalise the World Cup qualification spots and have two from the East and two from the West with an East v West playoff for the remaining 0.5 spot. There may be more than a slight bit of embarrassment/resentment/angst/hatred (delete as appropriate) amongst AFC bigwigs should their representatives at a World Cup held in a West Asian nation be entirely from the Eastern side of their confederation, aside from the hosts obviously. That's not entirely an improbable a situation; it happened in 2010 with four East Asian representatives and you'd have to think that at some point in the not-too-distant future that the Chinese will get their act together, especially considering the money they're investing in the game right now, and you could quite easily see Japan, Australia, South Korea and one of China, Uzbekistan or North Korea squeezing out the likes of Iran and Saudi Arabia for the fourth spot.

What worries me, particularly if Qatar retain hosting rights to the 2022 World Cup, is the AFC might then decide to regionalise the World Cup qualification spots and have two from the East and two from the West with an East v West playoff for the remaining 0.5 spot. There may be more than a slight bit of embarrassment/resentment/angst/hatred (delete as appropriate) amongst AFC bigwigs should their representatives at a World Cup held in a West Asian nation be entirely from the Eastern side of their confederation, aside from the hosts obviously. That's not entirely an improbable a situation; it happened in 2010 with four East Asian representatives and you'd have to think that at some point in the not-too-distant future that the Chinese will get their act together, especially considering the money they're investing in the game right now, and you could quite easily see Japan, Australia, South Korea and one of China, Uzbekistan or North Korea squeezing out the likes of Iran and Saudi Arabia for the fourth spot.

true. there isnt another continent that spits its WC spots though, right?

What worries me, particularly if Qatar retain hosting rights to the 2022 World Cup, is the AFC might then decide to regionalise the World Cup qualification spots and have two from the East and two from the West with an East v West playoff for the remaining 0.5 spot. There may be more than a slight bit of embarrassment/resentment/angst/hatred (delete as appropriate) amongst AFC bigwigs should their representatives at a World Cup held in a West Asian nation be entirely from the Eastern side of their confederation, aside from the hosts obviously. That's not entirely an improbable a situation; it happened in 2010 with four East Asian representatives and you'd have to think that at some point in the not-too-distant future that the Chinese will get their act together, especially considering the money they're investing in the game right now, and you could quite easily see Japan, Australia, South Korea and one of China, Uzbekistan or North Korea squeezing out the likes of Iran and Saudi Arabia for the fourth spot.

true. there isnt another continent that spits its WC spots though, right?

Concacaf regionalises the early qualification rounds but no one curreńtly regionalises all it's qualification.

Guangzhou are regarded as the front runners among the eight teams remaining in the tournament, especially after strengthening their squad in the summer with the signing Brazilian internationals Paulinho and Robinho.

Kashiwa Reysol's goal with a minute left in the match probably means there will be mild interest in the return leg. Mild, as in weird shit can happen in football, which is better than going to Guangzhou looking for a 3-0 or 4-0 win.